The Amelia Island auctions 2015 – preview

Another week of mega-auctions begins on the 12th March as auctioneering's big guns pound the Florida coast with some serious cars. We take a look at what's going to be crossing the block.

“Amelia Island” is round two of the big three US auction meets – Arizona, Amelia Island and Monterey – which ties in with the world-famous Amelia Island Concours D’Elegance.

What should we expect?

A lot of nice cars. The Paris auctions lacked the depth of quality that we saw only weeks earlier in Arizona but the line-up in Amelia Island is undoubtedly strong. Will the bidding be as strong as 2014? So far in 2015 (excluding the Baillon Collection) the bidding has been a little more conservative as stock begins to get a bit tighter and sentiment from experts cools the market slightly. We’d expect this to continue although prices will still be high. A bit like the UK/ US time difference, the US bidders are not at quite the advanced stages of enthusiasm that we see here in the UK for a lot of models (mid-engined V8 Ferraris being a good example) – let’s see if they are catching up.

What is on offer?

European cars dominate our picks but as this is the US of A there are plenty of great American cars to choose from. In our humble opinion RM Auctions RM Sothebys have stolen the show at Amelia in 2015. There are a gaggle of Mercedes Benz 300SL, 2.7-litre engined Porsches (RS and MFI), a number of Ferrari 512s (hot property at the moment), some amazing race cars (including a Jaguar D-Type), barn finds and some modern classics. Deciphering the auction descriptions will be absolutely crucial to anyone thinking of bidding as there are a number of cars for sale with “interesting” histories and it will be fascinating to see if this has an affect on values now the very best stock is dwindling a little.

Whatever happens – it will be an incredible weekend. You can view the cars we will be watching with interest below. If you wish to bid and pre-arrange an auction funding facility please get in touch.